Literature of Diversity: Queer Writing from the Caribbean

Catalog description

The Caribbean culture is famous for its vibrant carnivals, friendly people and dynamic music forms such as reggae and calypso. What’s not as famous or evident is its gay culture. In fact, the Caribbean has garnered a reputation of hostility towards queer lives. Time Magazine even once labeled Jamaica as the most homophobic place on earth. With this idea in mind, what does it mean to be gay and living in the Caribbean? The course uses this question as a call to engage with queer authors within the region or of Caribbean heritage. How do they articulate not just the politics of queer activism but also the reality of queer existence within that geographical space? What local traditions are already embodied as “queer”? Moreover, how does the possibility of ‘queer being’ on a postcolonial island differ from the political concept of queer in North American and Western European contexts? The course will briefly engage with critical texts from the library of North American and European queer thinking before delving into the literature from the region.